The Jewish New Year (Yom Kippur) begins October 12, 2005. Many know that this is the “holiest” time of the year for the 15 million or so Jews in the world. But is it really holy? Not if you’re a Gentile. What do Gentiles really know of this strange Jewish holy time, its rituals, and its prayers? And, what does Yom Kippur mean to us Gentile folk?

Gentile people should read and remember the Kol Nidre ("All Oaths") prayer. It is sung by “good Jews” as a chant each Yom Kippur; the chant absolves a Jew from any promises he will make during the coming year. With that in mind, how can one trust a Jewish judge, or a Jewish politician, or any Jew who takes an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States, especially when we know he also takes this religious oath, an oath that allows him to break his promise to the American people or anyone else?

Even if many Jews do not take the religion seriously, what does it say about the mentality of a race that not only conceives of and takes seriously such a concept -- but actually makes it a 'holy rite'?

The prayer states: "All vows, oaths, promises, engagements, and swearing, which beginning this day of reconciliation [un]til the next day of reconciliation [one year] we intend to vow, promise, swear, and bind ourselves to fulfill, we repent of beforehand; let them be illegalized, acquitted, annihilated, abolished, valueless, unimportant. Our vows shall be no vows, and our oaths no oaths at all." Schulc,han Aruch, Edit. I, 136. The Jews actually ask God for absolution for violating promises and vows -- before they violate them.

And if that is not enough to make Gentile people stop and think, we should take a look at the Kapparot (swinging chicken) ceremony practiced during the “holy” days of Yom Kippur.

The Kapparot ceremony is a Jewish rite “in which it is believed that one transfers one's sins from the past year into a chicken” (the chicken must be blessed by a Rabbi before it can be sold in the market). And, as if transferring sins into a chicken isn’t weird enough, the “corrupted” chicken is then “slaughtered and given to the poor.” Not only do the Jews think they can transfer their sins into a chicken, the supposedly sin-ridden bird is then given to the poor to eat? And some of you believe there's such a thing as a 'Judeo-Christian tradition'?

Their traditions -- and their mentality -- are very different from ours.